Ever since the north failed as a political entity in 1972, the British
administration which took over has created a series of shop-window
fronts to give the false impression, particularly to those looking from
abroad, that Britain was addressing the unique problems here.

To that end officials set up various paper tigers with
important-sounding names but with neither the power nor the authority
to do anything.

So we had the Fair Employment Act, the Fair Employment Agency which
made no difference to discrimination, the Standing Advisory Commission
on Human Rights which stood by as the British army and RUC violated
human rights on a daily basis, the Police Authority which had no
authority over the police, and so on and so on.

The one surviving remnant of this mentality is the Community Relations
Council, which has been in formal existence for 16 years during which
it has made no difference whatsoever to ‘community relations’, whatever
that is.

Then of course the CRC wasn’t meant to DO anything about improving
community relations. Like SACHR and the FEA and the other quangos, its
function is just to BE there so that the British can point to it and
claim they’re doing something.

There was a rare intervention in politics from the CRC’s chief
executive last week in an article in a local paper urging politicians
to support ‘practical measures’ to implement the NIO’s failed Shared
Future policy.

His article was very revealing, though not intended to be. It’s worth
quoting the two most revealing sentences in full.

“For nationalists, a shared future means committing to full engagement
in a state with which they have never felt comfortable and some have
dedicated their lives to replacing. For unionists, the hard part of
sharing will be making political arrangements with previously violent
enemies who have deeply traumatised friends and relations and coming to
terms with the Irish dimension to the six counties.”

So there you have it. Apparently, in this mindset, violence was all one
way. Unionists, despite being traumatised, will have to make political
arrangements with “previously violent enemies”.

All nationalists have to do is engage fully in the state. Dead easy.
Obviously none of their friends or relations were victims of violence
from unionist sources, paramilitary or official, or a combination of
both.

Unionist politicians have all clean hands.

Just forget the effects of systematic discrimination or the endemic
sectarianism of unionism which insisted on creating and possessing this
place to exclude nationalists.

You could see why nationalists were never comfortable, but that’s OK:
sure nobody ever did them any harm. Unlike the horrible nationalists
who carried out all the violence. Hmm. Fascinating insight, isn’t it?

Completely wrong-headed. Not just in apportioning blame, but in the CRC
mindset you don’t mention sectarianism.

The sentence should read: “For unionists, the hard part of sharing will
be treating nationalists as equals with as much right to run the
affairs of this place as unionists and accepting that unionists no
longer own the north.”

It’s not a case of simply “making political arrangements” and putting
up with all-Ireland bodies. The central problem facing unionism is its
inherent sectarianism, which no unionist politician has ever confronted
because it’s the basis of their political creed.

Look at the continuing sectarianism of unionist councillors, most
obviously in Ballymena and Lisburn. Does any unionist leader condemn
it? Does any even admit it?

Do you think it likely that the CRC would even name it as a problem
never mind do anything about it? Ooh noo. Nayce people call it
‘community relations’.

Yet we’re supposed to believe that the sectarian bigots who dominate
councils are suddenly going to treat nationalists as equals in a
partnership administration at Stormont with more at stake than emptying
the bins and burying the dead. The NIO has been compelled to deal with
discrimination and policing. The central gaffe in the CRC article shows
there’s a long way to go before they’ll be compelled to deal with
sectarianism.

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